The Return to the Unitary State

“The 28th of December 1949, Bung Karno triumphantly came ‘home’,” but not to his old house. He came to the palace, which was once occupied by the Dutch Governor General, whenever he was in the capital city of the Netherlands Indies. The return of Sukarno to Jakarta was an unforgettable event. In January 1946, Sukarno and his family left Jakarta in secrecy, now he returned to the kota Proklamasi (City of Proclamation) triumphantly “We could not get through the crowd,” he says in his astold-to-autobiography. “Millions upon millions flooded the sidewalks, the roads. They were crying, cheering, screaming, ‘Hidup Bung Karno’…[Long live Bung Karno]…‘Hidup…. Merdeka’.” It was certainly one of the brightest moments in Sukarno's biography and indeed in the contemporary history of Indonesia.

Never again would Sukarno become the single living symbol of national celebration. It was the greatest moment in his life as the national leader. He might well remain the most influential leader until the end, but on that historic occasion he was the symbol of national unity. At the crucial moment of the Republic, the Dutch might have been able to capture him and Hatta with a number of cabinet ministers and given the two leaders no other choice but to transfer the formal leadership of the Republic to the PDRI. However, when the time for national celebration came, it was Sukarno who emerged as the symbol of unity and victory. It was to Hatta, the Prime Minister of the Republic of United States of Indonesia, that the Queen of the Netherlands “transferred” the sovereignty over the then Netherlands Indies in The Hague, but his return to Indonesia was not greeted as the moment of triumph. By the time Sukarno returned to Jakarta, he had been elected as the President of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RUSI or RIS — Republik Indonesia Serikat), while keeping his position of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, which he and Hatta proclaimed on 17 August 1945. He remained, as Indonesian political parlance puts it, the President of the Republik Proklamasi, which continued to be perceived as the authentic representation of the struggle for independence.